{"id":597317,"date":"2026-04-21T09:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/597317\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T09:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:37:08","slug":"jaden-mcdaniels-calls-nuggets-all-bad-defenders-after-timberwolves-rally-to-win-game-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/597317\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaden McDaniels calls Nuggets ‘all bad defenders’ after Timberwolves rally to win Game 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER \u2013 Jaden McDaniels took perhaps his most notable shot after Minnesota’s 119-114 playoff win at Denver in Game 2<\/a> on Monday night.<\/p>\n

The Timberwolves forward pretty much labeled all the Nuggets’ players bad defenders. Thrown in there were All-Stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo after Jokic, Jamal, all the bad defenders,\u201d said McDaniels, who had 14 points and three assists. “Tim Hardaway (Jr.), Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team, just go at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

So they’re all bad defenders?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, they\u2019re all bad defenders,\u201d McDaniels added.<\/p>\n

The Timberwolves overcame a 19-point deficit to even the first-round series, which shifts to Minnesota for Game 3 on Thursday night. Anthony Edwards led the way with 30 points despite playing on a sore knee. He also had 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t got people that can defend the rim,\u201d McDaniels said. “We\u2019re still more athletic than them and just got to be able to finish when we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jokic had 24 points and 15 rebounds \u2014 all on the defensive end \u2014 while Murray scored 30 points. But Denver’s dynamic duo shot a combined 2 of 12 for four points in the fourth quarter. Murray had a chance to tie the game with a 3-pointer in the closing seconds but elected to pull up for a 2-point shot instead. <\/p>\n

He missed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was happy he took the two points,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cI thought he had a good look at a 3 when he first came off but yeah, he took the 2-pointer. I guess if he made it, we would have been in a free-throw situation. But yeah, I\u2019m kind of happy he took the 2-pointer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray said he \u201cdidn’t make enough shots tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s really about it,\u201d he added. “We all could have played better. It\u2019s not all on one person, that\u2019s just the way the game goes sometimes. They played hard as well. It was a good game. I thought we had the game in our hands, but we just didn\u2019t make enough shots, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2013 Jaden McDaniels took perhaps his most notable shot after Minnesota’s 119-114 playoff win at Denver in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1750,31513,6430,114221,1754,355,1756,99,4141],"class_list":["post-597317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-aaron-gordon","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-cam-johnson","tag-jaden-mcdaniels","tag-jamal-murray","tag-nba","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-sports","tag-tim-hardaway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}